Grateful Dead - From the Mars Hotel [50th Anniversary Edition]

Eight months after the release of Wake Of The Flood, the Grateful Dead followed up that masterpiece with the second album on their Grateful Dead Records label, From The Mars Hotel. To this day, most of the songs on From The Mars Hotel are played frequently by the band members as they continue to bring the music to the people, and during the Grateful Dead's touring career, more than half of the songs were important parts of their live repertoire.

“Scarlet Begonias,” “Ship Of Fools,” and “U.S Blues” arrived on the scene in 1974, with “China Doll” and “Loose Lucy” coming a year earlier, and they all quickly became staples of Grateful Dead live sets for decades, although “Loose Lucy” had a 15 year hiatus 1975-1989. Phil's two songs on the album are often played live these days when Phil performs with his rotating cast of Friends, and these songs, “Pride Of Cucamonga” and “Unbroken Chain” are elicit ecstatic responses. These would be the final two Phil- sung songs on a Grateful Dead studio album. Peaking at #16 on the Billboard Top 200 chart in 1974, the album's terrific batch of new songs and exceptional production had Dead Heads scooping up the album 50 years ago upon its release.

3CD Edition: Includes the Dead’s nearly complete, previously unreleased show from May 12, 1974, at the University of Nevada in Reno, playing an outdoor football stadium during a huge wind storm. The classic performance features all of the highs you expect from the Grateful Dead at this time: a huge “China Cat Sunflower” & “I Know You Rider,” From The Mars Hotel tunes including “U.S. Blues” an “Ship Of Fools,” a second set jam featuring one of those versions of “The Other One,” and plenty of classic Dead such as “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Tennessee Jed,” “Mississippi Half-Step,” “Truckin” “Sugar Magnolia,” and so many more great songs from their entire career. This is prime Wall Of Sound era Grateful Dead, from the sound system's first-ever road show. Coming on the heels of the Dead's two months in the studio recording Mars Hotel, it was an exceptionally exciting time in Grateful Dead world, even by their lofty standards.